Thanksgiving for What?

The point: Self-consciously seek to govern your prayers by the principles and precepts of the scriptures when praying alone with God.

The various facets of prayer are illustrated as slices that together make up the whole pie of biblical prayer, helping to organize the concepts.

Now, we are presently thinking together concerning the broad subject of biblical prayer as we engage in prayer, particularly in our closets. We are not thinking primarily of prayer in our public prayer meetings, for which the Word of God gives some very helpful directions in passages such as 1 Timothy chapter 2, but we are thinking more particularly of the kind of praying in which we are engaged when we are alone with God, when according to the words of the Lord Jesus, we have entered our closet, that is, the place where secretly we shut the door and are shut in with our God. Thus far, we have...

0:03 - 1:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Self-consciously seek to govern your prayers by the principles and precepts of the scriptures when praying alone with God.

The different aspects of prayer are categorized using the metaphor of a hand: 'hand full' (worship, thanksgiving), 'hand defiled' (confession), and 'hand empty' (petition), providing a memorable framework.

And then we have looked at the various facets of prayer. And I have suggested that it is helpful in organizing or collating, gathering these biblical concepts together under some headings to think in terms of the hand. The hand full, bringing something to God. The hand defiled, needing cleansing from God.

1:27 - 1:48 Read in full sermon

The point: Specifically thank God for specific mercies to strengthen your faith for similar mercies in times of similar need.

An analogy of someone in a starving culture receiving three square meals for a day, overflowing with gratitude, is used to highlight how easily we become indifferent to consistently conferred gifts like daily food.

if you and I lived in some of the cultures of the world today where people by the thousands even by the millions go to bed hungry every night I mean with conscious hunger pangs every night who have maybe a half a bowl of rice as their diet for the entire day they live constantly haunted with annoying pangs of hunger now if to a person in that setting someone were to come with a fully balanced meal and he was able to partake of it for three times in one day can you imagine how much he would overflow with gratitude to God at the end of the day for having had three square meals now the question i...

4:20 - 5:48 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth, sustainer of the universe, it's as though he suspends every other activity when he hears the slightest whimper of his most infant child.

The analogy of a busy mother dropping everything to respond to her baby's whimper is used to illustrate God's immediate and complete attention to the prayers of His children, emphasizing His amazing capacity to hear millions simultaneously.

It's a tragic thing when we lose the amazement of the reality of God's open ear. I mean, when you think of it, Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth, sustainer of the universe, it's as though he suspends every other activity when he hears the slightest whimper of his most infant child. But he doesn't, like us, need to do that. I mean, but picture it that way.

24:29 - 24:57 Read in full sermon

The point: Thank God for every single thing you consciously recognize as an interceptor in the course of sin.

Martin shares personal stories of thanking God for a bad case of acne and sprained ankles in high school, recognizing these as providential 'interceptors' that kept him from greater sin and potentially altering his life's course.

Do you praise God for sins you've never committed because God intercepted you? The older I get, you know, I don't know if I've mentioned this publicly. I know I have in terms of counseling from time to time. I thank God for the bad case of acne I had as a teenager.

36:00 - 36:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Thank God for every single thing you consciously recognize as an interceptor in the course of sin.

He recounts thanking God for a child entering the room, preventing him from speaking a harsh word to his wife, illustrating how God uses various means to intercept us from sin.

And who knows how many other sins. There are times when my own spirit has been in a given frame and I was maybe to say something and one of the children came into the room. I thanked God that he arrested me by the presence of one of my own children, maybe from speaking a harsh word to my wife that otherwise I would have spoken. Not being overwhelmed with the sense of the presence of God which ought to be the greatest charge, but sometimes those higher motives aren't operative and God brings a messenger in the person of our own child, in some friend.

37:01 - 37:31 Read in full sermon

The point: Discipline yourself by setting aside specific measures of time to only meditate upon and thank God for His gifts, refusing to ask for anything, to learn how to praise Him more biblically.

Martin shares an anecdote from his family's Thanksgiving worship where he instructed his children to only give thanks, not ask for anything, revealing how difficult it is for our natural 'gimme-itis' spirit to simply praise.

As far as I can remember, the first Thanksgiving since we've been married and had our family that we've been to ourselves as a family. We usually go down the mine folks as most of you know and yet I was laid out with a bug and one or two of the kids were sick. So as we had a time of our family worship I said to the children now I want you to give God thanks. Not to ask him for one thing but just give him thanks for the things that you ought to be grateful for.

48:53 - 49:19 Read in full sermon